“It felt like we were in a war and we were losing the battle,” Thompson said. “We already take this job knowing that one day we will lose them, but to lose them all so quickly and so fast, it’s like we walked in one day and everybody was here and we walked in the next day and the whole side of the building is cleared because the other side of the building they all got corona, and then you come in the next day and you know you lose one and you come in a few days later and then five are gone and you come in a couple of days after that and 10 are gone. It was literally unreal. It was like a bad nightmare.”
Villa Springfield is just one of 20 long-term care facilities in Clark County to experience an outbreak of the coronavirus, according to data from the Clark County Combined Health District. The healthcare center’s outbreak occurred in early to mid-November. In its entirety, 53 residents and 27 staff members tested positive for the virus. It also claimed the lives of 17 residents.
The coronavirus, now spreading rapidly across the country, has been particularly harsh to older adults. The risk increases with age, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Geraldine Wilson, an 85-year-old resident at Villa Springfield, contracted COVID-19 during the outbreak. The hardest part of fighting the virus was doing it alone, she said. It’s been since early March that she has seen her family in person.
“That was very, very hard. That was very hard for me,” Wilson said. “And scary. I didn’t know what was coming next and being there alone, it was sad.”
Of Clark County’s 187 total COVID-19 deaths, 134 have come from long-term care facilities. Forest Glenn Health Campus in Springfield has the most deaths, with 28, according to data from the CCCHD.
Villa Springfield officials said the healthcare center did “everything,” in their power to prevent an outbreak, including stopping in-person visits in early-March, about a month before Gov. Mike DeWine ordered long-term care facilities closed to visitors. The healthcare center also tested, and still tests, employees and residents on a regular basis.
Villa Springfield reported zero current resident and staff cases, as of Wednesday when the ODH released the latest numbers on long-term care facilities.
Treating COVID patients isn’t the only thing that took an emotional toll on Thompson. During the outbreak in November, she was one of the healthcare center’s positive staff cases. When she received the call that she tested positive for the virus she “just started crying,” she said
“You just start thinking, ‘who all have I been around?’ And you can’t even think about it fast enough. It’s so hard to explain,” Thompson said. “Having corona itself wasn’t bad, for me, it was like a cold. But I watched it literally take out half of my residents and it’s so unfair. It was just so unfair.”
That has been one of the most frustrating parts of the pandemic, Thompson said — seeing how differently the virus attacks everyone. Treating residents who were COVID-19 positive was worse for her than contracting the virus itself, she said.
“You can’t take them out. There is only so much you can do while they are in the room. You can’t stay all day with them in the room, even though they are alone, even though you want to because you got 20 other people that you have to share that love with. It’s emotionally draining,” Thompson said.
In addition to the emotional toll the pandemic has taken on her, Thompson said it has also left her “physically and mentally drained,” and with the cases continuing to spike across Clark County it feels like hope has been “stripped away.”
November was Clark County’s deadliest COVID-19 month with 68 county residents dying from the virus. Of those, 48 came from long-term care facilities, according to data from the CCCHD. Despite the month’s high numbers, Charles Patterson, Commissioner of the CCCHD, said at the beginning of December that Clark County will likely see more “dark days,” before the dawn. On Friday, he said Clark County was on track to have an even deadlier December with 29 coronavirus deaths reported this month.
Thompson said she agrees with Patterson’s assessment about the future of the pandemic in the county. But she’s nearing her breaking point.
“I’m definitely past exhausted. I’m definitely past frustrated,” Thompson said. “We saw the light at the end of the tunnel and I feel like now we got it stripped right back to darkness. I feel like we are back to the unknown.”
Thompson said she fears after the pandemic is over, a number of frontline health care workers will be left with long-term mental health issues.
“We are taking care of these people for years and they just die and it’s not like what we normally get which is ‘oh so-and-so is declining.’ No. We’re having to deal with back-to-back-to-back deaths and any human with a heart is going to take that hard. It’s going to be too much,” Thompson said. “We didn’t sign up for this.”
Clark County had a total of 7,081 cases, 182 deaths and five probable deaths of the coronavirus as of Friday, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
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The Springfield News-Sun is committed to providing in-depth coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on Clark County. How have you and your family been affected by the pandemic? Have you lost someone to COVID-19, contracted the disease yourself or had to care for a loved one? Are you an essential worker or on the frontlines at a hospital or long-term care facility? Has there been a financial toll on you and your family? We want to hear your story. Contact us at newssun@coxinc.com or Riley.Newton@coxinc.com
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